Thomas Tull’s Legendary Pictures Goes ‘All In’ for Geek Movies

HOLLYWOOD — The new film Where the Wild Things Are was produced by Warner Bros., a company you’ve probably heard of, and Legendary Pictures, a company you might not have. Legendary has only been around for five years, but it’s got an innovative, multipicture co-production deal with venerable Warner.

The two companies reportedly split the enormous production costs (and the enormous profits) of their films 50/50. And they’ve had a lot of success with cinematic adaptations of comic properties like 300, Watchmen and Batman. Upcoming projects include film versions of the DC comic Jonah Hex and game franchises Gears of War and World of Warcraft.

Wired talked to Thomas Tull (pictured), founder of Legendary Pictures and an avid gamer and comic reader, about his adaptations of geek touchstones.

Wired: Legendary/Warner co-productions have proven that comic-book adaptations don’t have to be family friendly — they can be grisly and edgy and R-rated and still make money. But your new film Where the Wild Things Are, which opens Friday, is a PG-rated adaptation of an illustrated children’s book. What gives?

Thomas Tull: We’re also adapting this really cool kid’s book called The Spook’s Apprentice. We’re not brooding or anti-fun or anything like that, and we’re not out to make every property dark. There are properties that warrant that tone, and others that don’t — 300 is certainly not a cuddly tale.

It’s about treating the property with respect. Like, I’m a huge Batman fan, and not in some campy way. Campy is just not who Batman is — he’s a vigilante.

We talk about being “all in.” You go into a theater and everything else is gone for a couple of hours, you can voyeuristically experience this other world. Our taste is to not wink at the camera. Sometimes you can tell that the folks making a film are half-embarrassed that they’re doing it; they broadcast that it’s beneath them, that it’s just a goof. I think you’ll find that Where the Wild Things Are is not just a goof — it’s got an authentic voice.

Wired: Legendary is known for foregrounding the directors on its films.

Tull: Yes, we’re a very director-driven company. There are many factors that go into a successful movie — actors, producer, etc. But you want to make sure that you have that field marshal there to bring it all together.

Look at who we’ve had the privilege of working with. Bryan Singer, Spike Jonze, Chris Nolan…. We’re working on our third movie with Nolan right now, Inception. Zack Snyder — we’re on our third movie with him, too.

Look at The Hangover, which has been a tremendous success for us. You could have dismissed it and said, “Ah, another Vegas comedy.” But in Todd Phillips‘ hands? That’s what got us really excited about it. I was a huge fan of Todd’s Old School.

Wired: And The Hangover went on to be one of the biggest movies of the year. Peter Bart wrote in Variety that Legendary has a computer model that tells you how much to spend on a movie, how to be sure it’s going to be a success. Is there actually a formula for this?

Tull: If you find a formula — call me. We have an awful lot of performance data on past films, and you can look at that and give yourself a range of outcomes. But there’s no supercomputer in the back room telling us what to do.

Wired: I want to ask about your upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans. There’s a spate of remakes of 1980s films in the works, everything from Red Dawn to Romancing the Stone. How do you decide that it’s time to revisit a property?

Tull: We don’t believe in doing a remake the way you’d put in a new roof: “It’s been 15 or 20 years, so it’s time again.” There’s no sense in doing it unless you have something new to say, or unless the constraints are different. Clash of the Titans was a touchstone for me as a kid. The stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen is a god, and it’s disrespectful to compare our film to something from a different era. But the effects on our version look absolutely seamless. You’re not really aware that you’re seeing effects — that mythical beast looks like a real creature. With the tech we have today, there’s something new we can say.

Wired: When you were starting Legendary five years ago, were the Lord of the Rings films an instructive example for what you might be able to do? Here was this geek-friendly property adapted with a lot of care and reverence …

Tull: Those are my favorite movies of all time. Every Christmas break, I watch all three of them again, and that’s something I’ll do for the rest of my life. I was a huge fan of the books, I don’t know how many times I’ve read them, so I walked into the theater with a clear sense of those characters in my mind. I already knew what Frodo looked like, I already knew what Gandalf looked like. And the lights go down, the movie comes on, and oh my gosh … there’s Gandalf, you know what I mean? They nailed it. And Peter Jackson’s fingerprints are all over those films. He had respect for the material, and he never winked at the camera.

I do think Lord of the Rings opened things up, the fact that New Line rolled the dice and said, “Let’s make all three of them at once.” Any time somebody else has done something successfully, it’s a lot easier to swim in that wake.

Wired: What elements of the film industry have changed the most drastically in the last few years?

Tull: The marketing. It’s become so nuanced, and it’s not just television ads and billboards, but online marketing, viral marketing…. We share production duties with Warner Bros., but they handle all marketing and distribution, and I’m just in awe of the way they’re able to rise above the noise and gain people’s attention. That’s so much harder to do nowadays. Twenty years ago, you had Blockbuster, HBO and videogame consoles. But there really weren’t that many choices. Today you can get 500 channels on DirecTV, you’re walking around with a cellphone in your pocket that’s actually a minicomputer, you’re listening to iTunes, you’re on Facebook…. The entertainment choices are staggering.

Wired: Can you think of some examples where the marketing really helped one of your movies?

Tull: I think the 300 is a good example of that. Early on, we tested it and it looked like it could be big. But the marketing side made the decision to stay on message and not try to make the movie sound like it’s something it isn’t in order to broaden the appeal. That approach was very successful.

I think the marketing of the Watchmen is another example. That particular film may not be for everybody, but we’re very proud of it.

Wired: You produced and funded It Might Get Loud, a documentary about three generations of rock guitar gods, by yourself, totally apart from Legendary.

Tull: That was a lot of fun. I’m a guitar geek, the director Davis Guggenheim is the best documentarian on the planet…. It was just a movie I wanted to see. Also, I got to meet Jimmy Page.

Wired: That must have been a real departure for you.

Tull: Making an independent documentary is a completely different experience from the stuff we do at Legendary. Everybody wears more hats, everybody involved has to be doing it out of love rather than financial gain.

Wired: What were films that really resonated with you when you were a kid?

Tull: Well, definitely Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And then all the Amblin stuff. You know, The Goonies, all those films had this sense of adventure that I think still holds up today.

Wired: Is this job something that you dreamed of doing when you were a kid?

Tull: No, not even remotely close. I grew up in upstate New York in, I guess you’d say “modest circumstances.” Single mom and all that. If I saw what I’m doing now, I would definitely think that it was an apparition from the future playing a trick on me.